Make 2020 the year of Crokinole

My love story with Crokinole it has become an all-consuming passion during quarantine.

There are two groups of people when it comes to Crokinole: Those who have never heard of the popular skill-based game, and those who are diehard fans. The vast majority of people start their lives in one group, and then play a round or two with a good friend or family member and instantly join the second group. It is a painless conversion, I assure you.

Or at least as painless as a game, this can be initially expensive. Your first board will cost at least $ 100, and probably more, but you’ll get what you pay for. And then you learn the rules, and you zoom your first shot across the board, knocking down one of your opponent’s pieces and leaving the board open for a shot in the center, and you’re hooked. It’s easy to fall in love with Crokinole, and it tends to happen very quickly.

You could also be Canadian, and you grew up with him and you have known that all along, but most of us are not so lucky. So what is it CrokinoleOr why is it the perfect game for our time?

Crokinole rules

Crokinole It is often played between friends and family as a way to socialize, sometimes while drinking. It’s the perfect excuse to be with people, talk about what’s going on, and sympathize with the state of the world by trying to demolish the other player or team during the game. Crokinole It is a way to socialize as much as it is a fun way to spend time.

Crokinole the boards are large, so you’ll need a good amount of space to set up and play. I bought mine at Crokinole Canada, and was very pleased with the quality of the board.

Most rounds are played with two people sitting across from each other, and each player has 12 discs to move in the middle of the board. You can also play with two teams of two players each.

Players take turns moving their discs toward the center of the board. Only discs that stay entirely within the 15-point inner ring are legal and remain on the board. Your opponent must make sure to hit your piece so that his own play is considered legal. Therefore, their turn implies that they try to move their disc towards their piece in the middle, to hit their piece completely or at least in an area that is worth a lower point value, while keeping their own piece in the 15 point area. of the board. Any piece hit in the small well sunk in the middle of the board is removed from the game and kept aside as they are worth 20 points at the end of the game.

That is all you need to remember. If the board is clear, you must aim to the center and keep your pieces there to score. If there are pieces on the opposite side of the board, you must aim and hit at least one of them so that your own piece remains on the board, earning points. If he fails, his shot is removed from the board, without having obtained points. Any pieces that have been thrown from the playing area into the gutter are removed. The round ends when each player has fired all of their discs, and then the game is scored.

There are a few other soft parts here and there that you can pick up once you start playing, they all seem to create their own house rules after buying a board, but those are the basics.

The score sounds a little tricky on paper, but it makes perfect sense once the game starts in earnest. Only one player or team wins points in a given round; the number of points earned equals the difference between the opponents’ scores, and those points are awarded to the player or team that came out ahead. So, if we are playing, and you put 60 points on the board but I earn 50 points, the final score is 10 points, and they go to your total.

Then the board is reset and another round begins. This continues until a player or team reaches 100 points or the agreed victory condition. And that is! That is the game. Now you know how to play Crokinole.

A game for our time.

But what you don’t know yet is how exciting it is to send a piece flying perfectly between two pegs to take off an opponent’s piece from the board. Shots that feel like you’re aiming through a viewfinder. The beautiful chaos that occurs when you shoot a piece in the middle, and players and spectators get excited in the brief moment of chaos as everything bounces off everything else, waiting to see who won or lost the most points from the interaction.

There are those magic shots where everything goes well and you can achieve the impossible, but they are much rarer than tragedies where everything goes wrong. I’ve played games where players kept hitting pieces directly into the center hole, and I’ve played long stretches where the board was set up over and over again because no one could finish the round with none points on the board. I’ve had long discussions about the “one cheek rule,” which says you can adjust your sitting position to get a better angle of fire, as long as at least one of your buttocks touches your chair. times.

Does that sound like a joke? Of course. Are there games where things can get very complicated for you if you challenge the one cheek rule to get the best shot? Absolutely, especially if the players involved have been drinking a little. Or a lot, as it seems to be the case these days. Crokinole It tends to start out as a slight detour, only for players to start taking it very seriously as the night progresses.

That change is part of the magic of Crokinole, especially for families, couples or friends united in quarantine. The game can grow or shrink depending on how people want to play and what they hope to get out of it. Crokinole It can be something that happens in the background, something to attract attention and distract the upper part of your brain if you want to play some low-risk games while chatting and hanging out. Or it can turn into a much more serious search, leading to tense games that are played almost silently where every point counts.

It can be as casual or unconditional as you like, and that malleability makes it the perfect family game. The rules and basic gameplay are simple enough for even very young children to participate in, but the skill limit is so high that you can spend years mastering the toughest shots and honing your precision.

There’s also the ritualistic nature of the board itself, the large piece of wood that feels more permanent and satisfying than any other playing surface you’ve ever played on. Some people add sand to help the pieces slide across the board, and doing so completely changes the feel of the game. Other people swear by different levels of wax added to the wood or pieces, to reduce friction.

You’ll find players with strong feelings about the materials used for the pegs in the middle of the board. It’s easy to become a skilled gamer at your own plastic-peg sanded board, only to feel once again like a beginner at a friend’s waxed board with rubber-wrapped metal pegs. And yes, I put the sand directly on the board. What some people disagree with, but it’s okay! No two boards, or approaches to the game, are exactly alike, and there are no right or wrong answers on how to play as long as everyone agrees.

It is a game that evolves over time, as players improve and the board is treated with care and love. It takes up space, time, and varying amounts of attention. It is a silly game of skill that you can play with your children, or a serious test of skill that could lead to friendly screaming with friends.

You can have the perfect shot lined up and the perfect board to win the game, but you still have to execute it. There is nowhere to hide, and no excuses will be accepted. Either you make every shot or you don’t. Crokinole it is life, reduced to its primitive essence and pressed on a wooden board. You are going to live one wooden record at a time, just as Dominic Toretto would have wanted … if he had grown up Canadian.

Crokinole It is not a game as much as a complete and autonomous hobby that requires practice, continuous attention, skill and luck. Playing it is loving it, and buying your own board and attracting others to the fold is an investment in your own future. 2020 has been bullshit in many ways, but you can improve it at least a little bit by bringing Crokinole in her own home, and in doing so, bringing her to his heart.

You will not regret.

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